Saturday, March 29, 2008

Individuals using Taxpayer identification numbers are not part of the stimulus package. So stop your paranoia that undocumented Immigrants are getting billions of dollars at taxpayer expenses.

Q. I file using an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN). Can I still get a stimulus payment?

A: No. The law does not allow stimulus payments to people who file a return using an ITIN. A taxpayer must have a valid Social Security Number to qualify for the stimulus payment. If married filing jointly, both taxpayers must have a valid Social Security Number. And children must have valid Social Security Numbers to be eligible as qualifying children

Friday, March 28, 2008

National Geographic gives a fair and balanced view of 'Border Wars'.Tonight at 8 pm. by Tom Dorsey.

First meet Jose tonight in Altar, Mexico, on his way to his new Kentucky home"We've come to this town on our way north to find work to help our families," he says. "We're planning to go to Kentucky, but we don't have a job lined up yet, but as soon as we get there we'll find one," Jose tells a National Geographic Channel reporter (Insight 450) on "Explorer: Border Wars" at 8 p.m.

Jose doesn't use his last name because he's an Undocumented immigrant. He does have a wife, and their three children were born in this country.

Jose spends half of the money he makes in Kentucky on his family and sends the rest home to his parents. His father is sick, so he goes back to see him once a year and then runs the gantlet back from Mexico to somewhere in Kentucky.

Jose is in a $3-a-night room in Altar, Mexico, crowded with other men headed for the promised land. We're told that only one or two will make it.

The others will be scooped up by the Border Patrol and shipped back to Mexico if they don't have criminal records. Some are first-timers. Many are people who just keep coming back until they make it or die.

Lots of them are found dead in the desert, where temperatures soar well above 100 degrees. Their sun-bleached bones are discovered after the buzzards are through with them.

The Mexicans pay $4,000 a head to be guided through the no man's land to America. Half is in cash upfront. There is a regular line of shuttle vans that transport them from Altar to the border for the risky trip. The guide refuses to let the Geographic crew go beyond a certain point, and the team loses track of Jose.

Then the documentary unit joins up with the U.S. Border Patrol to get the other side of the story. Viewers who think nothing is being done should watch what members of the patrol are doing.

We see them operating everything from high-tech, remote-control Predator drone airplanes to low-tech methods used by guys who track the Mexicans by following their footprints in the desert.

It takes 50 pounds of water to survive the three-day trek across the desert. The cameras are there when one delirious woman, who got separated from her group and couldn't keep up, wanders down a road.

She just wants to go home. The Good Samaritan who gives her a drink could be sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving her a ride to the border.

The Border Patrol operation is especially intense and sophisticated at places such as Nogales, Ariz. A fence runs down the middle of town separating it from Nogales, Mexico, on the other side.

The fence extends to a point outside town, where it runs out. America has a 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, and there's no wall that long. Besides, people always find ways around it.

The patrol has an army of vehicles and equipment to stop the flow, which isn't all just desperate people trying to find work to feed their families. We watch the patrol running down drug dealers who use this route to mule-pack large bales of marijuana into the U.S.

The average immigrant poses no problem when he's stopped. He or she simply surrenders when confronted and goes back willingly across the border. Drug dealers, however, can be deadly enemies.

The agents catch up with thousands of Mexicans every day. Thousands more, no one knows how many, slip by. The most popular estimate is that 12 million are in this country illegally.

President Bush is seen saying border protection is critical, but that it's not ever going to be enough to solve the problem. It might take an army bigger than the one we have in Iraq to do the job.

In the end, the Geographic teams finds Jose in Kentucky with his family. He's defied the odds again. His biggest fear is that he and his wife will be deported.

Geographic doesn't take sides. It just shows us the people caught up in the drama. Lou Dobbs, who has made a career out of ranting about the dilemma on CNN, might not care for this approach, but it's a fair, balanced and honest one that pictures the problem for what it is.

THREE INDICTED FOR FILING FALSE TAX RETURNS USING NAMES AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS OF PRISONERS. GUESS WHAT. NONE OF THEM WERE UNDOCUMENTED.

Baltimore, Maryland - A federal grand jury has indicted Giacumo Marzano, age 66, of Baltimore; Karen Woodard, age 42, of Suitland, Maryland; and Melanie Taylor, age 34, of La Plata, Maryland, on fraud and identity theft charges in connection with a scheme to file false income tax returns using the names and social security numbers of inmates from the Maryland Department of Corrections and other prisons, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. The indictment was returned on March 25, 2008.

According to the 10 count indictment, from 2004 to 2007, Marzano supplied inmates of the Maryland Division of Correction with income tax forms. Marzano coordinated with Woodard and Taylor to mail, receive and cash the inmate's tax refunds. Marzano and Taylor opened bank accounts for inmates to facilitate cashing the tax refund checks. Marzano also opened a post office box which received money orders from the proceeds of the fictitious tax refunds. After taking part of the refunds for themselves, Woodard and Taylor sent the remainder of the refunds to Marzano, the inmates and others. To hide the scheme and their true identities, the defendants often used fake names.

According to the indictment, the scheme involved over 101 fictitious inmate tax returns with claims totaling $365,599.41.

Each of the defendants faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States and 20 years in prison for mail fraud. Marzano also faces a maximum of 15 years in prison for producing false identification documents, and a mandatory two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, consecutive to any other sentence imposed. The defendants are scheduled to have their initial appearances in federal district court at 3:00 p.m. today.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceedings.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their investigative work. Mr. Rosenstein commended Assistant United States Attorney Kwame J. Manley, who is prosecuting the case

Immigration has emerged as one of the most controversial issues in American society and politics in recent years. As Faiza Elmasry reports, the latest voice in the ongoing debate comes from Hispanic-American reporter Geraldo Rivera.

Throughout his career as a television journalist and talk show host, Geraldo Rivera has often tackled America's most controversial and divisive issues. And that's what he continues to do in his latest book, His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.

Rivera starts out on a personal note. He talks about his father, Cruz Rivera, the sixth of 17 children born to Juan and Tomasa Rivera. At age 21, he says, his father decided to leave Puerto Rico, come to America and stay forever.

"My Dad came in 1937 on a banana boat, one of the vessels that were flying the Caribbean bringing bananas and fruits from the tropics up to the city (New York City)," he says. "He met my Mom, a Jewish lady from New Jersey. He was the counterman in a restaurant. She was a waitress. They fell in love."They got married. The Riveras continued to work hard and settled down in Brooklyn.

"It's a story that's like so many tens of millions before and after us," he says. "All my Dad ever wanted was for us to grow up and be assimilated, to be Americans, real Americans."Becoming real Americans, he says, is what motivates immigrants to adapt to their new life.

"America has a way of changing immigrants much more than immigrants change America," he says. "The problem is to teach our children Spanish. That's the problem. English is everywhere. You can't find a second generation immigrant in this country who doesn't speak English."

Over the last 5 decades, the number of Hispanic immigrants in the United States has grown tenfold.

"In 1950, in the U.S., there were 4 million Hispanics," he says. "Now, there are 45 million in the U.S. It's projected that Hispanics will be 25 percent of the entire U.S. population by 2040. We are already the largest minority in the U.S."

Rivera notes that there are many nationalities in that large minority, and that they are not treated equally when they arrive in the U.S.

"Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States ever since 1917," he says. "We can't vote in the presidential elections if we live in Puerto Rico, but if we live here we can vote. Then you compare the way that Cubans are treated when they get here to the way Haitians are treated when they get here. The Haitians, if they arrive on our shores, they are immediately detained and deported. A Cuban, if they touch our land, they can stay. Some of it has to do with the fact that we are anti-Castro, anti-communist Cuba."

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that more than 12 million Hispanic immigrants are in the United States illegally. Most have crossed the border from Mexico. Rivera says this influx was not seen as a serious problem until recently.

"Mexican immigrants, drawn by lax border enforcement and a paying job, hundreds of thousands, come across the southern border to work in the fields and ranches of the Southwest," he says. "They come to work in the meat processing plants and poultry packing plants. They populated some small towns in the south that had been abandoned by their original residents. But then, 9/11 happened, and everyone started to clamor about terrorism and securing the borders and the poor Latin American immigrants got caught in between."Rivera says many law-abiding Hispanic-Americans are facing discrimination and mistreatment as a result of anti-immigrant sentiment in the country.

"There are many instances now where citizens, Hispanics, are being asked for a proof of status, a proof of citizenship because they have brown skin or a moustache," he says. "A guy called me, a naturalized citizen who came originally from Mexico. He has a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old son who were born here. Obviously, they are citizens. The kids come home crying from school saying, 'Dad, what is the border jumper?' They were being called border jumpers by the kids in their school."

In his book, Geraldo Rivera outlines why many Americans fear Hispanics… and why they shouldn't.

"We're seeing immigrants, particularly Hispanics, being blamed for bringing crimes and disease, stealing jobs from native born Americans and spreading terrorism," he says. "Ninety-seven-and-a-half percent of the people in the American prisons are citizens. Immigrants by every study I've seen commit fewer crimes than citizens. They don't bring in disease. They are not terrorists. There has not been a single terrorist penetration of our southern border yet. I interviewed the Homeland Security Secretary and asked him three times that question. There has never been one."

Rivera says the message of his book is simple and clear.

"You don't want to send a message to the world that America is open to everybody who can get here," he says. "That's not the message you want to send. You need control. You need to know who is here. But, for goodness sake, you also need to be compassionate and broadminded. You need a dual approach, a stricter border and an amnesty program or a path to an earned citizenship or at least a visa. So the 12 million [illegal Hispanic immigrants] or more who are here can live their lives normalized without fears of retribution or arrest or deportation and families being split up and all the rest of that."

Hispanics, Geraldo Rivera says, are not the first wave of immigrants to spark mistrust and controversy… nor will they be the last. Developing a practical and humane immigration policy, he says, is essential for a nation that was created and made great by the contributions of immigrants.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The undesirables in U.S. God bless America.

I ask you as a Citizen and Hispanic origin, when is enough, is enough?.”

A century ago; the Irish and Chinese were feasting together on poor, unsuspecting Uncle Sam. Immigrants - Jews, Russian and Italians - were treated as a rats infesting the nation. Today, it’s the Mexicans who are infecting the U.S. with “unbounded levels of immigration labeled them as the worse criminals, rapists, drug addicts, and the list goes on and on. The Target change but the fear remain the same.

The same anti-immigrant sentiment vitrol of a century ago — only the country of origin and the color of skin have changed.

As a result, the poisonous residue of immigrant scapegoating has accumulated in the margins, fueling the rise of hate groups setting their sights on Latinos, regardless of citizenship status.

We must change the direction of this Anti Immigrant sentiment know. Unfortunately we do not have a political voice either government representation as a minority group at any level. When the Anti Immigrants has been incorporated into every level of government, the number of raids, detentions and deportations has skyrocketed.We have been ignored and in such a polarized and ugly environment we need to stand and raise our voices for Human and Civil rights. Otherwise we will be marginized from America.

from Cable-TV pundits and radio shock-jocks to partisan "research" organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies - has crafted in the public mind the archetype of the undocumented immigrant as Latino, as criminal, and as a threat to the "American way of life." This has opened the gates for the re-emergence of traditional hate groups, and fertilized the soil for the growth of new ones.They continue scapegoating Latinos just for ignorance, and because we have a different color of skin.

It's time to embrace our family and personal values, dignity, support, tolerance and build our leadership amongst ourselves. Latinos, Hispanics we are a majority minority group who can make the difference, the change.

We need to stop being used as a tool of propaganda for political purpose, economic failure, Natural disasters and individual paranoid interest.

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) - Federal immigration authorities have arrested 34 Latin American nationals at a Prince William County construction company for being in the U.S. illegally.A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the workers are from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador. They are in ICE custody undergoing deportation proceedings.The arrests occurred Monday at work sites for CMC Concrete Construction in the Manassas area.

ICE spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs could not discuss why the construction company drew federal attention, saying two search warrants executed in connection with the operation were under seal.

New study estimates that Oklahoma's anti-immigration law will cause $1.8 billion in economic losses as foreign-born workers flee the state.

The projection is based on 50,000 workers, both documented and undocumented, leaving Oklahoma, causing a 1.3 percent reduction in the gross state product over the next few years.

The Oklahoma Bankers Association said it has no stand on the immigration measure, but commissioned the study after reports from banks of problems incurred by companies that employ immigrant workers.

One restaurant that had been making $5,000 payments to a bank each month closed its doors, construction projects have been delayed because of a lack of workers and farm workers have disappeared, banking officials said.

Oklahoma's House bill, written by Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, took effect Nov. 1, preventing undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses and public services.

It criminalized transporting, concealing or harboring them, and eventually will require employers to check immigration status of prospective employees through an online federal program.

State lawmakers around the country are proposing hundreds of bills this year aimed at curbing Undocumented immigration, including lawmakers in at least eight states sponsoring legislation similar to Oklahoma's

While the OBA took no position on the Oklahoma measure's social policy, "bankers do have concerns about unintended consequences that have come as a result of the bill," said Don Abernathy, chairman of the association.

"That's the reason we decided to commission this study, to better understand the facts and get a better handle on the costs to the state's economy and to bank customers," he said.

The study, by the Economic Impact Group of Edmond, Okla., was based on Oklahoma having a total foreign-born population of 111,000 to 175,000, with an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 being undocumented workers, mainly from Mexico. The state has an overall population of 3.5 million.

According to officials who conducted the study, Oklahoma's economic losses will build over the next few years, before a slight recovery in the state gross product as new workers move into the state.

Officials said the study is consistent with similar analyses performed in Texas.

Hispanic leaders have estimated that more than 20,000 undocumented workers, mostly in the Tulsa area, fled the state ahead of the bill taking effect.

Terrill questioned the study's conclusions after a cursory review of it. He said his legislation was geared toward "an attrition through enforcement approach," with no mass exodus of undocumented workers expected.

He said, however, the intent of the bill was to have undocumented workers leave Oklahoma for other states and there is antidotal evidence that is happening. "We still have no hard numbers," he said.

Terrill called the report "one of the best reports that money can buy to take shots at (the) House bill."

"This debate is about a whole lot more than just economics," he said. "It is about defending the rule of law, it is about upholding our state and national sovereignty and it's also about the immorality of employing cheap, illegal labor."

The lawmaker said an anti-immigration group has estimated Oklahoma loses more than $200 million in state revenue through education, medical and other benefits paid to Undocumented workers and their families.

Terrill said the OBA report does not account for those benefits in projecting economic losses to the state.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Oklahoma statute as interfering with federal immigration law.

FRAMINGHAM — Local Anti Immigration group CCFIILE is an extremist, nativist group that has attracted a number of hard-core racists and neo-Nazis, an investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found.

The investigation, published yesterday in the group's quarterly magazine, found CCFIILE, or Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement, has targeted Brazilians throughout the region.

Co-founder Jim Rizoli yesterday dismissed the report.

"It's not true," he said. "I read what the SPLC wrote, and it's laughable. It's laughable what they wrote."

The report details links between CCFIILE and other extremist groups.

"There are ties between the CCFIILE membership and blatantly white supremacist and anti-black groups," the report reads.

At least two prominent CCFIILE members Kevin O'Neil and John Kennedy are also members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, the SPLC report found.

Among the platforms of the Council of Conservative Citizens is "oppos(ition to ) all efforts to mix the races of mankind." The group has also called blacks "a retrograde species of humanity," according to statements in the SPLC report. O'Neil is the leader of the CCC's regional New England Council.

CCFIILE's Web site has also apparently been a frequent destination for Mark Martin, head of the Ohio division of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.

Posting under an alias on a site maintained by the group, Martin advocated violence against minorities, even suggesting putting a bounty on their heads and "shooting them for sport," according to the SPLC report

Rizoli yesterday insisted he quickly removes such offensive postings from the group's site.

"First of all, my list is an open list," he said. "I don't even know some of the people on that list. One day someone posted something about killing or hurting illegal immigrants. I said, 'That's absolutely wrong.'

"I took him off the list immediately. I will not tolerate violence to anybody on my list. I will not tolerate anything like that."

Electronic records, though, suggest otherwise.

Martin's message suggesting shooting minorities for sport was posted to the CCFIILE site in November 2007, but was not downloaded by SPLC investigators until mid-January, records show, meaning Rizoli allowed it to remain on the site for at least two months.

In another case, a flier created by the National Socialist Movement was posted on the CCFIILE site. Typically such files can only be posted by site administrators, according to SPLC investigators.

Rizoli, for his part, said he merely maintains the list, and simply cannot monitor every message as it is posted.

"I'm probably looking at that list a good hour a day," he said. "My list is a place where people can have freedom of speech, and I let them have freedom of speech. When I see it's of a violent nature, I take it down, that's all I can say."

While he insisted he removed the offensive postings from the site, Rizoli also suggested many of the statements may have been posted by SPLC staff hoping to bait CCFIILE members into making racist statements.

"They were posting things to cause people to react," he said. "I get this (investigation) and then all of the sudden everybody knows what's going on on the site."

It was a charge SPLC editor Mark Potok rejected out of hand.

"That is utter and complete hogwash," Potok said yesterday. "Rizoli can think of any conspiracy he wants to think of to explain the posting in his own group. We didn't do that. This is what CCFIILE is, we're merely trying to show the world."To read Southern Poverty Law Center's report, go to www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=882

I want to congratulate Mr. Patrick Garland for speaking about Human Values, Democracy, and true for the people has been scapegoating, persecuting, dimished and who do not have a political voice. Undocumented and Documented Immigrants.

A young, ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. A Nigerian medic. A soldier from China who boasted he would one day become an American general. An Indian native whose headstone displays the first Khanda, emblem of the Sikh faith, to appear in Arlington National Cemetery.

These were among more than 100 foreign-born members of the U.S. military who earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq.

Jose Gutierrez was one of the first to fall, killed by friendly fire in the dust of Umm Qasr in the opening hours of the invasion.In death, the young Marine was showered with honors his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin.And yet, his foster mother agonized as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez's service, put it differently.

"There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President Bush in April 2003. He urged the president to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime.

"They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket," Mahony said.But as the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death — and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honor means.

Gutierrez's citizenship certificate — dated to his death on March 21, 2003, — was presented during a memorial service in Lomita, Calif., to Nora Mosquera, who took in the orphaned teen after he had trekked through Central America, hopping freight trains through Mexico before illegally sneaking into the U.S.

"On the one hand I felt that citizenship was too late for him," Mosquera said. "But I also felt grateful and very proud of him. I knew it would open doors for us as a family."

"What use is a piece of paper?" cried Fredelinda Pena after another emotional naturalization ceremony, this one in New York City where her brother's framed citizenship certificate was handed to his distraught mother. Next to her, the infant daughter he had never met dozed in his fiancee's arms.

Cpl. Juan Alcantara, 22, a native of the Dominican Republic, was killed Aug. 6, 2007, by an explosive in Baqouba. He was buried by a cardinal and eulogized by a congressman but to his sister, those tributes seemed as hollow as citizenship."He can't take the oath from a coffin," she sobbed.

There are tens of thousands of foreign-born members in the U.S. armed forces. Many have been naturalized, but more than 20,000 are not U.S. citizens."Green card soldiers," they are often called, and early in the war, Bush signed an executive order making them eligible to apply for citizenship as soon as they enlist. Previously, legal residents in the military had to wait three years.Since Bush's order, nearly 37,000 soldiers have been naturalized. And 109 who lost their lives have been granted posthumous citizenship.

They are buried with purple hearts and other decorations, and their names are engraved on tombstones in Arlington as well as in Mexico and India and Guatemala.

Among them:• Marine Cpl. Armando Ariel Gonzalez, 25, who fled Cuba on a raft with his father and brother in 1995 and dreamed of becoming an American firefighter. He was crushed by a refueling tank in southern Iraq on April 14, 2003.

• Army Spc. Justin Onwordi, a 28-year-old Nigerian medic whose heart seemed as big as his smiling 6-foot-4 frame and who left behind a wife and baby boy. He died when his vehicle was blown up in Baghdad on Aug. 2, 2004.

• Army Pfc. Ming Sun, 20, of China who loved the U.S. military so much he planned to make a career out of it, boasting that he would rise to the rank of general. He was killed in a firefight in Ramadi on Jan. 9, 2007.

• Army Spc. Uday Singh, 21, of India, killed when his patrol was attacked in Habbaniyah on Dec. 1, 2003. Singh was the first Sikh to die in battle as a U.S. soldier, and it is his headstone at Arlington that displays the Khanda.

• Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick O'Day from Scotland, buried in the California rain as bagpipes played and his 19-year-old pregnant wife told mourners how honored her 20-year-old husband had felt to fight for the country he loved."He left us in the most honorable way a man could," Shauna O'Day said at the March 2003 Santa Rosa service. "I'm proud to say my husband is a Marine. I'm proud to say my husband fought for our country. I'm proud to say he is a hero, my hero."

Not all surviving family members feel so sure. Some parents blame themselves for bringing their child to the U.S. in the first place. Others face confusion and resentment when they try to bury their child back home.

At Lance Cpl. Juan Lopez's July 4, 2004, funeral in the central Mexican town of San Luis de la Paz, Mexican soldiers demanded that the U.S. Marine honor guard surrender their arms, even though the rifles were ceremonial. Earlier, the Mexican Defense Department had denied the Marines' request to conduct the traditional 21-gun salute, saying foreign troops were not permitted to bear arms on Mexican soil.

And so mourners, many deeply opposed to the war, witnessed an extraordinary 45-minute standoff that disrupted the funeral even as Lopez's weeping widow was handed his posthumous citizenship by a U.S. embassy official.

The same swirl of conflicting emotions and messages often overshadows the military funerals of posthumous citizens in the U.S.Smuggled across the Mexican border in his mother's arms when he was 2 months old, Jose Garibay was just 21 when he died in Nasiriyah. The Costa Mesa police department made him an honorary police officer, something he had hoped one day to become. America made him a citizen.But his mother, Simona Garibay, couldn't conceal her bewilderment and pain. It seemed, she said in interviews after the funeral, that more value was being placed on her son's death than on his life.

Immigrant advocates have similar mixed feelings about military service. Non-citizens cannot become officers or serve in high-security jobs, they note, and yet the benefits of citizenship are regularly pitched by recruiters, and some recruitment programs specifically target colleges and high schools with predominantly Latino students.

"Immigrants are lured into service and then used as political pawns or cannon fodder," said Dan Kesselbrenner, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild. "It is sad thing to see people so desperate to get status in this country that they are prepared to die for it."

Others question whether non-citizens should even be permitted to serve. Mark Krikorian of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, argues that defending America should be the job of Americans, not non-citizens whose loyalty might be suspect. In granting special benefits, including fast-track citizenship, Krikorian says, there is a danger that soldiering will eventually become yet another job that Americans won't do.

And yet, immigrants have always fought — and died — in America's wars.During the Cvil War, the Union army recruited Irish and German immigrants off the boat. Alfred Rascon, an Undocumented immigrant from Mexico, received the Medal of Honor for acts of bravery during the Vietnam war. In the 1990s, Gen. John Shalikashvili, born in Poland after his family fled the occupied Republic of Georgia, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After the Iraq invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico fielded hundreds of requests from Mexicans offering to fight in exchange for citizenship. They mistakenly believed that Bush's order also applied to nonresidents.

The right to become an American is not automatic for those who die in combat. Families must formally apply for citizenship within two years of the soldier's death, and not all choose to do so.

"He's Italian, better to leave it like that," Saveria Romeo says of her 23-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, who was born in Calabria, died in Iraq and is buried in New Jersey. A miniature Italian flag marks his grave, next to an American one."What good would it do?" she says. "It won't bring back my son."

But it would allow her to apply for citizenship for herself, a benefit only recently offered to surviving parents and spouses. Until 2003 posthumous citizenship was granted only through an act of Congress and was purely symbolic. There were no benefits for next of kin.

Romeo says she has no desire to apply. She says she couldn't bear to benefit in any way from her son's death. And besides, she feels Italian, not American.

Fernando Suarez del Solar just feels angry — angry at what he considers the futility of a war that claimed his only son, angry at the military recruiters he says courted young Jesus relentlessly even when the family still lived in Tijuana.His son was just 13, Suarez del Solar said, when he was first dazzled by Marine recruiters in a California mall. For the next two years Jesus begged the family to emigrate and eventually they did, settling in Escondido, Calif., where the teen signed up for the Marines before he left high school.Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez Del Solar was 20 when he was killed by a bomb in the first week of the war. He left behind a wife and baby and parents so bitter about his death that they eventually divorced.Today, his 52-year-old father has become an outspoken peace activist who travels the country organizing anti-war marches, giving speeches and working with counter-recruitment groups to dissuade young Latinos from joining the U.S. military."There is nothing in my life now but saving these young people," he says. "It is just something I feel have to do."

But first he had to journey to Iraq. He had to see for himself the dusty stretch of wasteland where his son became an American. In tears, he planted a small wooden cross. And he prayed for his son — and for all the other immigrants who became citizens in death.

How Americans changed the view of Legal and Undocumented Immigrants specially Mexicans after the attacks of September 11, 2001?.

Republicans representatives are the most outspoken against Legal and Undocumented Immigrants producing more than 350 bills for their political purpose against according to them undocumented Immigrants. What about their Families? What about their children? Majority of them are U.S. Citizens; And at least one of their parents maintained a legal Status. Again Republicans Political representatives continues blind toward the root of the main problem on Immigration. The Dysfunctional and obsolete system. I believe this Country was founded by Immigrants with a faith towards a common purpose. The American Dream.

Latinoamericanos en Accion was founded the month terrorists took down the Twin Towers.

Maybe it's irony or cruel coincidence that the Hispanic advocacy group is closing its books the month the S.C. General Assembly is discussing how best to implement Undocumented immigration laws.

It's ironic because the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks changed how Americans viewed the world, which led to more scrutiny of international visitors. That scrutiny is fixed upon those who cross the U.S.-Mexican border - even though the hijackers didn't enter the U.S. that way, the Canadian border is twice as long and half as protected, and Russian students and South African and Brazilian visitors also purposefully overstay visas. A few decades prior to that day, the U.S. even quietly accepted undocumented workers and President Ronald Reagan provided them amnesty.

And it's cruel coincidence because the need for such an advocacy group has never been greater, because legislators in Columbia are basing laws on faulty research provided by anti-immigration groups; because Hispanics - undocumented and legal residents - face increasing hostility; because an assortment of institutions is trying to serve a group that is growing exponentially.

"We still need a service agency here," said Lee Bollinger, a Coastal Carolina University professor and the group's treasurer. "I think it would have worked if the sentiment here would have been better."

But every time Bollinger spoke in public, she got angry phone calls from residents who wanted Hispanics deported.

She and others tried to save the group. They changed its name to "Latin American Service Organization" because some residents said the original named sounded militant.

They held meetings with businesses to make them aware of what they offered - training opportunities, a place to bridge cultural differences that hamper business transactions and service, a repository of accurate information, a group that helps documented Spanish-speaking clients and urges undocumented workers to enter proper legal channels.

"I'm a child of immigrants. I feel that laws should be for everyone," said Miriam Berrouet, the group's president. "We did everything we could to get them legalized. We tried to blend the two cultures together as best we could."

And they met with area chambers of commerce and discussed creating an S.C. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The head of the Hispanic chamber in Atlanta counseled them. A handful of area businesses were receptive, but the idea couldn't gain traction with donations and public support in short supply.

"We were willing to work with them," said Brad Dean, head of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "They did challenge us on whether or not we truly understood and would support the need for Hispanic businesses, especially related to legislative needs. We need a sensible solution to our immigration problem and that means tighter enforcement at the federal level."

But while that idea died and various people are trying to step into the void, the Hispanic population - its legal and Undocumented parts .

Victor Rivera Jr., owner of USA Services, which helps Spanish-speakers navigate the economy, said 100 area Hispanic-owned businesses would have joined such a chamber. Many of them are made to "go down the long road [of red tape], which is expensive," feel intimidated by anti-immigrant sentiment, and have employees and clients who live in fear.

He does, as well, even though he has provided up to eight area jobs, is a citizen who moved here from New York in 1989 and decided to help the needy after promising God after his wife survived cancer.

"I am a grown man fearing injustice," he said, adding that he's felt disrespected by judges and had attorneys warn him about being too active in Hispanic affairs. "I don't deal with anyone who violates the law, just people who are doing everything the right way but are being hampered by the system."

Saturday, March 22, 2008

What most Americans do not know about how foreign Nationals facing to enter or stay in U.S. If we discussed by gender the door remained closed for some..

For some the door is wide open (Businessman's, Investors, politics, diplomats,and some folks with preferential treatment) for others too difficult and longer(Foreigners under developing Countries, meanly Latinos, for others disrupted and humiliated (Middle Eastern, Mexicans,Indians) for others Closed,(Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgenders.

This article for some will be controversial but let's put aside emotions and let's view the Human sideand the dysfunctional of the Immigration system.

Facts about the visa and immigration system and how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people fit into it—or do not.

Most U.S. citizens know nothing about what foreign nationals face to enter or stay in the United States. “People don’t realize the implications” of the immigration process, says Nathalie Fuz, a French national living in New York with her U.S. partner Kelly McGowan. Nathalie, who owns two retail stores in the city, is able to stay, temporarily, on an employment visa. However, she says, “Unless they’re within a binational relationship, nobody understands it. Not just the mainstream, but within our community”—the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. “Yet daily incidents remind you that you don’t have rights, not only as someone gay, but as a binational couple.”

Yet, says Barbara, who lives in Massachusetts with her U.K. partner Susan, “When it’s your life, you’re researching it constantly, researching always, because it’s very hard to keep up with all of the current information.” Rafael Jaen, a Venezuelan and an internationally known costume designer, has an O-1 (outstanding ability) visa letting him stay in the U.S. with his partner of ten years, Stephen Brady. He says, “My whole life is organized around my visa status and everything I need to do to keep the visa.”

The unequal treatment of lesbian and gay partnerships is only one among many interlinked inequities riddling the immigration system. Marta Donayre, co-founder of Love Sees No Borders, a group for binational gay and lesbian couples, points out:

Women have a harder time coming to the country. To get a tourist visa, you have to prove that you have ties back home. Women are less likely to have bank accounts or own property, so it is harder for them to qualify. Third World status makes it far more difficult as well—which is about race and also is about economics: so in immigration policy, you clearly see the intersection of race, gender and class at work.

The system is both extremely complex and pitched towards the estrangement of couples. We ask readers to try an experiment in the ensuing pages. Whoever you may be, imagine this: you are a U.S. citizen who, traveling abroad, has met someone—the love of your life. You share dreams and ambitions—and the same sex. What you don’t share is citizenship; he or she is not from the United States. You have gone home after a period together overseas; but the two of you plan to be reunited, as soon as your partner can join you in the U.S.

This may actually be your story, in which case the coming pages may ring true. If it is not, you may learn some unexpected facts

Here is the first problem. “Family reunification” lies at the heart of the U.S. immigration system. U.S. citizens can sponsor family members—parents, spouses, children or siblings—for permanent immigration. About two-thirds of all immigrant visas are family-based. During a recent debate on immigration reform, one Republican congressman declared, “Prolonging the separation of spouses from each other … is inconsistent with the principles on which this nation was founded.”

The family reunification system is flawed—limited in reach and plagued by backlogs which suspend some family members (especially sisters and brothers) in indefinite delay. For you, though, it is irrelevant. Your partnership—your family—does not count at all. Current U.S. law, particularly the Defense of Marriage Act, forbids recognizing same-sex permanent partners as “spouses” or family members for immigration purposes. The “heart of the system” suddenly seems heartless.

The denial is particularly galling when you learn about what is called a “fiancé(e) visa.” The K-1 visa allows the intended spouse of a U.S. citizen to enter the U.S. for ninety days, to marry him or her and then apply for permanent residence. The U.S. citizen must simply show that he and his (or her) partner:

have met in person at least once in the last two years (exceptions are possible), have a bona fide intention to marry, and are “legally able and actually willing to conclude a valid marriage in the United States” within ninety days after the partner gets there.

Obviously, lesbian and gay couples are not eligible for K visas because of the “valid marriage” criterion. Even if they have a “bona fide intention to marry,” their marriage will not be recognized by U.S. law. You also realize the only requirement imposed on opposite-sex couples in your situation is that they intend to marry and have met once in person. You and your lover might have lived together for decades, or even married in countries where it is legal; it would make no difference.

Friday, March 21, 2008

They're calling it the pastor disaster. Once again this week, drama inside the Democratic party dominated the attention of US voters.

A black clergyman who isn't running for anything. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a fiery and influential churchman who used to lead the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Obama and his family worship.

The Rev. Wright performed the senator's wedding and the baptism of both of his children. He served as a spiritual adviser to the Obama campaign. Then excerpts of Wright's videotaped sermons found their way onto TV.

They displayed deep anger about the long history of racism against African-Americans and the role the US plays in the world. Wright urged his followers to abandon the familiar phrase "God Bless America" and say "God Damn America" instead.

Just days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he blamed the US. "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

But today his image was lifted by the endorsement of the N.M. gov, Bill Richardson.Declaring that Sen. Barack Obama is an "extraordinary American," Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsed Obama for the Democratic nominee for president on Friday.

Barack Obama will make a great and historic president," Richardson said, Obama standing at his side. "[It] is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our nation and you are a once-in-a-lifetime leader."

"He's done the kind of work that you want from your public servants, somebody who's driven not just by raw ambition, not just by an interest in personal aggrandizement," Obama added. "He's been somebody who's been motivated by the desire to make the lives of his constituents and working people a little bit better.

As a Hispanic-American, I was particularly touched by his words," Richardson said, putting his arm around Obama and declaring in Spanish that he is "a man who understands us."

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time." -- Abraham Lincoln.

Why society do not understand that Hate crimes against Hispanics, Latinos has been risen from year to year, month to month and day by day?.

The surge has been driven in part by fears of immigrants.

We have a growing segment of the American public that truly hates undocumented and legal immigration. But that hate has cross the line from a hate of the kind of people who break those laws to a Hate of action. Meaning I do not want you here at all.

The conflict between residents is not far from racial, or minority fights of America's past. In the early days of the Republic, Catholics were particularly despised by the bulk of the American people. Irish came in for their share of attack in the late 1800s — again with anti-Catholic sentiment playing a part. Jews and blacks were also put upon by haters and rabble-rousers in our past. And in each of these cases back in our early days (and as late as the 1960s in the case of the black oppressions here), people were barred from working, barred from government, and oppressed. At one time or another they were even physically attacked, their businesses and homes burned to the ground, their children refused schooling, their churches attacked and many were even killed in significant numbers.

Of all the communities in Prince George's County, tiny Mount Rainier seemed a fitting place to pass a broad sanctuary law for Undocumented immigrants. After all, the ethnically diverse city of 9,000 already prohibits its police force from enforcing federal immigration laws and inquiring about a person's citizenship status.

But when the five-member City Council sat down to consider sanctuary status, dozens of angry speakers from Mount Rainier and beyond crowded into public hearings to oppose the measure. The debate not only split neighbors but drew activists from across the state who are concerned about illegal immigration.

This week, the council tabled the resolution, citing the divisiveness. "I think it's pretty much dead," said council member Jimmy Tarlau, who lobbied for the proposal.

Maryland's nascent movement against illegal immigration, which began with protests over a day-laborer center in Gaithersburg, is moving beyond Montgomery County as advocates reach out more broadly, to African Americans and other groups and to rural counties.

"I have nothing against anyone who wants to come to America, but don't expect us to open our arms if you are not willing to do what it takes to become a citizen," said Natalie McKinney, a newly minted activist who hands out leaflets at her gym in Waldorf, at crowded bus stops and at a farmer's market in La Plata.

McKinney's message is new not only to Charles County, where she heads a fledgling chapter of Help Save Maryland, a group that opposes illegal immigration. It is also new to Maryland's African American community, which until now had been largely silent on the issue or had found common cause with the struggle of Latino immigrants. In contrast with Virginia, where a fast-growing movement against illegal immigrants has prompted several counties in the past year to call for restricting services, Maryland has appeared more welcoming toward its Latino populace, now estimated at more than 500,000, including tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.

The core of Maryland's small movement against illegal immigration has been in suburban Montgomery, where members began organizing last year to oppose a day-laborer center in Gaithersburg that helps Latino immigrants find jobs regardless of their legal status.

Until recently, the groups were considered a fringe minority in a state with a tradition of liberal politics. Civil rights groups, labor unions and black church leaders across Maryland have embraced the immigrant cause as an echo of their own struggles.

"There are some who want to create a schism between African Americans and Latinos, but we need more black-brown coalitions. In one way or another, we are all immigrants," said the Rev. Jamila Wood Jones, an African Methodist Episcopal pastor in La Plata. "This is a land of opportunity, not a place where we want to make criminals out of people who come to make a better life for their families."

Recently, a group of Maryland lawmakers with family ties to a dozen countries launched a pro-immigrant committee called the New Americans Caucus, which they said was aimed at keeping national anti-immigrant sentiment out of Maryland politics and at fighting legislative proposals that target illegal immigrants.

In recent months, however, the movement against illegal immigration has gained altitude across the state, with groups such as Help Save Maryland recruiting members and forming chaptersThe surge has been driven in part by fears of immigrant flight from Virginia and in part by several controversial issues, such as a state proposal that would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain special driver's licenses. That plan was ultimately rejected by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D).

The epicenter is still Montgomery, but we are getting members in many other counties now," said Brad Botwin, a Rockville resident who heads Help Save Maryland and speaks at meetings across the state. "This is not like the Ellis Island time, when my grandparents came. We cannot afford to build schools and clinics and job centers for people who came here illegally."

This message has begun to resonate in unexpected corners of the state. In Carroll County, the largely white farming community of Taneytown recently debated, then rejected, a resolution to keep out illegal immigrants. In Charles County, African American activists such as McKinney are beginning to solicit support from their neighbors.

In Prince George's County, a racially and economically diverse jurisdiction whose Latino population has grown rapidly in some neighborhoods, the issue of job competition from poorly paid illegal immigrants has aroused concern among some African Americans. Until recently, though, there were virtually no organized groups raising the issue.

When Mount Rainier proposed becoming a "sanctuary city," like Takoma Park in Montgomery County, Help Save Maryland joined some residents in lobbying against it.

Such a regulation, Botwin said, does not stop federal authorities from enforcing immigration laws. "It's irresponsible for our elected officials to put in policies like this," he said. "It's unnecessary."

Joe Robbins, a Mount Rainier resident who testified in favor of the law, saw the immigration issue differently. "Isn't it similar to the one that this country was founded on, that of 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free'?"

Elsewhere, Green Line riders are likely to encounter Pree Glenn-Grayves, a legal secretary, handing out leaflets at every stop on her commute home from the District. For Glenn-Grayves, the issue hit home the day her husband discovered that many customers of his home remodeling business had switched to firms that hired Latino workers, paid lower wages and were able to make lower bids on renovation jobs.

Angry and frustrated, Glenn-Grayves said she turned to the Internet and discovered the Web site of Help Save Manassas, which led her to Help Save Maryland. Nine months after signing on as a volunteer, she has become its county coordinator.

"You'd be amazed how many African Americans are incensed about this. A lot of them are still in the closet, but I am being flooded with e-mails," she said. "The black and Latino movements have nothing to do with each other. We want to help the civil rights of our citizens, not of the people who invade our country, take our jobs and drag themselves across the border so they can have U.S. citizen babies."

Pro-immigrant groups say the clout of Help Save Maryland and its allies is still minimal. They assert that the great majority of state residents, even if unhappy about problems associated with illegal immigration, are opposed to harsh measures against immigrants. Taneytown's City Council eventually rejected a proposal to make the community a "sanctuary" from illegal immigrants, and the General Assembly has routinely killed proposals to deny services or legal rights to illegal immigrants.

"If groups like Help Save Maryland exist now, we consider that a price of our success in retaining Maryland as a positive place for immigrants," said Kim Propeack, an activist with Casa de Maryland, a state-funded group that runs five day-laborer centers. "Most Marylanders are not comfortable with undocumented immigrants, and they believe we have a broken system. But they want constructive dialogue and solutions."

In trying to enlist public support, new activists such as McKinney and Glenn-Grayves seem to face an uphill battle. Most people accept their leaflets politely, and some express concern. But few seem eager to get involved. Last week, at the farmers market in La Plata, a woman selling vegetables told McKinney that she had mixed feelings.

"I don't want to see people be ostracized if they have been mistreated in their home countries," said Joan Bowling, who has lived in Charles County for 30 years. McKinney pointed out that many immigrants enter the country illegally, some commit crimes and many do not learn English.

"I see what you mean," Bowling said, tucking away the leaflet. "I'm with you on that. They should do it legally."

At the Branch Avenue Metro stop, where Glenn-Grayves often tries to start conversations, an assortment of commuters expressed concern about such issues as job competition from Latino workers and overcrowded rental housing. But they also expressed sympathy for hardworking immigrants trying to survive.

"I disapprove of people living 8 to a house, using public services and not paying taxes. There should be stronger laws," said Norman Brown, 57, who works for a firm that organizes trade shows. "But these immigrants do the jobs a lot of our younger people won't do, and once they settle down with families, it may be too late to send them back. I have strong feelings, but this is not an easy issue."

Most students at Palo Alto High School do not expect a history of severe racism in their greater community. Most students discuss the United States' shadowy history tainted by racial prejudice and how people continue to work to overcome it. However, these students are not aware of the fact that during the 1920s and mid-1940s, many residents of Palo Alto and Stanford University were members of the racist hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by veterans of the Confederate army after the Civil War in an attempt to resist the northern states' plans of reconstructing the South.

The Klan used violence and terrorism, such as lynching or cross burning, to display their white-supremacist views and to intimidate social or ethnic groups that they believed were of lower status. However, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan began to disintegrate after President Ulysses S. Grant passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

Both Palo Alto and Stanford University established their own distinct chapters of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s and mid-1940s. Their members acted on their hatred of African-Americans, Catholics, Jews, homosexuals and immigrants throughout the community.

A second wave of Klan followers emerged in 1915 when D.W. Griffith's film, Birth of a Nation, was released. The film was based on Reverend Thomas Dixon's book, The Clansmen, which romanticized the original formation and actions of the Klan.

The propagandist's film displayed images of white men rescuing terrified Southern white women from haunting-looking black men and protecting the South from negative black influence.

Klan membership dramatically increased in the late 1910s to six million members across the country, which was about one quarter of the American male population during the time period. Many women were involved in the Klan as well.

In 1923, Palo Alto first encountered the Klan when Robert Burnett, a Texan and engineering graduate of Stanford University, advised the Palo Alto Times of his determination to create a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Palo Alto.

By the next year, two local chapters emerged. One was a Palo Alto chapter, made up of some of the area's businessmen and political figures and the other was at Stanford University, comprised of at least seven members of its staff. Later that same year, a women's auxiliary of the Palo Alto chapter was instated and consisted of over 50 members.

Unabashed, the two chapters of the Klan held many of their meetings publicly and throughout Palo Alto, both out in the streets or in public facilities.

According to the Palo Alto Times archive, initiations of new members were carried out and witnessed by as few as a hundred local resident or as many as a few thousand. They were organized by assigned recruiters, or Kleagles. Venues, such as the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and numerous other halls in the area, were used for initiations and demonstrations. The Klan gatherings were extremely formal and each event would be conducted by an assigned leader. All members would be suited in a white hooded robe and a cross was burned as members chanted and made speeches.

At this time, Palo Alto Police Chief Chester F. Noble used his authority to repress the growing Klan movement within Palo Alto by aiding potential minority victims and empowering building owners to not rent their sites to the Klan. He made a valiant effort to eliminate Klan corruption within the police force by firing officers whom he discovered to be Klan members and by preventing police compliance with Klan activities, according to the Palo Alto Times.

Noble was later brought to trial and falsely accused by enraged Klan members of financial corruption and dismissal of charges against numerous criminals. Noble was testified against by multiple Klan members, including Burnett.

Outward violence by the Klan was relatively dormant during the 1920s. The Klan was able to intimidate the social and ethnic groups that it despised because of its large size.

The Klan drastically adapted since the 1920s and was much more secretive and covert. They no longer held large marches or gatherings, and all actions that were labeled as the Klan's were generally more terrorist-like intimidation rather than intimidation by the masses.

During the mid-1940s, Palo Alto residents suspected that there had been a second uprising of the Ku Klux Klan. However, the suspicion was never corroborated.

On May 31, 1946, a three-foot-high Ku Klux Klan insignia was painted in bright red on the intersection of Homer Avenue and Ramona Street, which was formerly a dominantly black populated area of town.

The menacing insignia disturbed local residents and Palo Alto Chief of Police Howard A. Zink immediately took action to repress any further uprising, vandalism or violence. Earlier that year, the home of an African-American WWII veteran named John T. Walker was burned to the ground in Redwood City, after the 22-year-old veteran was repeatedly threatened.

Despite the collaboration with the Palo Alto Police Department and other local police departments, no one was ever convicted for the crime.

Most students react to this little-known fragment of Palo Alto's past with disbelief.

"I know that the Ku Klux Klan was very wide spread, but I did not make the association that they were so prolific as to spread here too," junior Nadav Shiffman said.

Despite the popularity of the Klan in certain areas, the Klan has mostly disappeared in the U.S.

"While the crimes of the sort have subsided, the tensions are still there," Shiffman said. "Perhaps it will always be there as long as we continue to view race as an issue

If you are a blogger about Immigration, Immigrants, Human Values, against Racism, bigotry and wants to be involved on my weekly Hot Topics on HIS PANIC. Please, do not hesitate to send me an email at proinmigrant@gmail.com

Solution to HIS PANIC on Immigration. We have a dream two; We deserve to be treated equal to others.

Fueling the Anti Immigrant sentiment, anger and hate crime on the rise. Do you believe congress are part of this conspiracy? Fueling the Anti Immigrant sentiment towards Hispanic Community with 350 bills against Undocumented Immigrants!!!!

With anti-immigrant sentiment at a steady boil across the nation, it’s not surprising that hate crimes targeting Latinos are on the rise. New FBI statistics suggest a 35 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2006.

Nor is it surprising that hate groups are once again on the march. A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that 888 hate groups are operating in this country, including 11 in Oregon. That is 44 more than the center counted in 2006 and 286 more than in 2000.

Anger over immigration has been a feature of American life for years. That anger has intensified since last year’s congressional meltdown over immigration reform.

Thoughtful people can disagree about, and respectfully debate, immigration policy: What’s the best way to secure this country’s borders? How many foreigners should be admitted and for what purpose? What should be done with the 13 million illegal immigrants already in this country?

But extreme sentiments, once the exclusive province of white supremacists, have begun to seep into the mainstream. They’ve become the common verbal currency of nativist immigration-reform activists, talk radio hosts, cable TV commentators and even elected officials who smear immigrants as criminal aliens, invaders, terrorists and cockroaches — human detritus whose dangerous, lawless presence must be swept from this country.

Few go so far as to actually endorse violence against immigrants. But no one should be deceived — that’s the inevitable result of dehumanizing rhetoric, as white nationalist, racist skinhead and an array of other groups are agitated by the anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The presidential primaries have done distressingly little to address this problem, and, in some instances, have fanned the flames.

With the exception of Sen. John McCain, now the presumptive nominee, Republican presidential candidates seemed determined to out-tough each other on immigration. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who once supported financial aid for illegal immigrant students, offered up a “Secure America Plan” that required the expulsion of all illegal immigrants within 120 days. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who once supported a Senate bill that provided undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship, declared during the primaries that he despised amnesty.

Even McCain, who took heavy fire for his co-sponsorship of a bipartisan immigration bill that would have provided a means to grant legal status to illegal immigrants, distanced himself from talk of legalization, focusing instead on get-tough border enforcement.

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have done better than the Republicans, with both committing to support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But they have tiptoed around many of the difficult, complex issues that must be addressed by serious immigration reform.

Ultimately, the blame for the recent surge in anti-immigrant sentiment reflects back on Congress, which failed to pass a comprehensive reform bill that despite its flaws contained workable fixes for the border and workplace, and a coherent strategy for dealing with the illegal immigrants who are already here through a demanding path to earned citizenship.

When Congress failed to pass an immigration reform supported by President Bush last year, lawmakers understood it was their last chance to act — that the presidential race would make it impossible to address the issue until 2009 at the earliest, and perhaps later. They knew state and local governments would fill the void in federal leadership by approving their own mishmash of laws, most of them punitive and none capable of fixing a broken immigration system that’s becoming more dysfunctional by the day.

Because of Congress’ failure, this nation is increasingly divided over immigration, hate groups are proliferating, and bias crimes against Latinos are on the rise. In this year’s elections, Americans should choose candidates for both Congress and the White House who will help make true reform a reality and begin healing a nation that has been too long and too deeply torn over immigration

There's no safe place for Hispanics, Latinos do to a heavy wave of fear mongering, scapegoating and racial profiling by some Anti Immigrants, Anchor News, ICE and even school officers.

The deportation of a high school student in Roswell, N.M., presents yet another example of the need for immigration reform.

Last November, Karina Acosta, a senior at Roswell High, was dropping off a student at a middle school when a police officer noticed she was blocking a fire lane.

The officer followed Ms. Acosta to the high school, and ticketed her when he discovered she had no driver's license. He asked her for proof of legal U.S. residency. An Undocumented immigrant, Ms. Acosta had no documentation. He called immigration authorities.

Thus, even though Ms. Acosta was a senior at the school and making good grades, she was sent back to Mexico.

Teachers, parents and other people in Roswell are upset over the incident, the Associated Press reports. They may have legal justification from a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that guarantees children who are in the country illegally the right to a public education.

Federal authorities generally do not enforce immigration policy on school grounds, AP notes. But the officer in the case was a member of Roswell's police force who was assigned to the school.

After parents protested the action, the officer was taken off the school beat and the program that placed him at the high school was suspended.

In a similar case in 2004, three students who were arrested at an Albuquerque high school on immigration charges sued the police, who later settled, reports the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Making students vulnerable to deportation at school interferes with their right to public education, said Jennifer Moore, who teaches human rights and refugee law at the University of New Mexico.

School is supposed to be a safe place, and the 1982 law indicates a right to education for young undocumented immigrants. But the larger issue has to do with immigration policy as a whole — it is in disarray.

Arizona's recent attempt to halt the employment of the undocumented within its borders will not deter more workers from crossing the border.

Exasperated with what it perceives as the federal failure to control our border with Mexico, Arizona will now sanction Arizona employers who knowingly hire the undocumented. Such employers risk losing their licenses to operate a business.

Although the state has reported an increase in people leaving the state since Jan. 1, when the law took effect, only the politicians and anti-immigrant coalitions who supported the law are claiming success.

Economists point out that the state's economy is experiencing a serious downturn, and it is impossible to distinguish whether the law or the weak economy is causing increased apartment vacancy rates, reductions in school populations or shorter lines in emergency rooms.

The Arizona Republic in Phoenix has reported that "everyone knows someone who is struggling to hang on to a business closely tied to the housing industry."

And those who are leaving Arizona may be taking their consumer expenditures along with them: Sales tax collections show a 2 percent decline statewide for the current fiscal year.

Arizona undermines its own economy by seeking to rid itself of immigrants. A December 2007 Congressional Budget Office report recognized that most efforts to evaluate the economic impact of unauthorized immigrants on state coffers have concluded that tax revenues generated by documented and undocumented immigrants exceed the cost of public services they use.

An even more current report from the American Immigration Law Foundation cited a 2007 study that balanced Arizona state tax revenues paid by immigrant workers -- including naturalized citizens and noncitizens -- against exceeded services provided, and found a net profit to the state of about $940 million for fiscal 2004.

Most analysts believe that studies such as these apply to the undocumented as well. Studies showing the specific contributions by the undocumented in Iowa, Oregon, Texas and the Chicago metropolitan area all showed revenues exceeding services for the population.

Finally, the CBO report concluded that even if public spending exceeded the taxes generated, spending by state and local governments to provide services to the undocumented on average accounted for less than 5 percent of total spending for the particular service.

Arizona has one issue right: Workers cross the border unlawfully to find jobs. If the chance to support oneself and one's family is no more present in the U.S. than in Mexico, many Mexicans will much prefer to eke out a living in the country where they were born, speak the language and have a history. But of course, even with United States' depressing economic forecast, our economy remains substantially stronger than that of Mexico.

Much like the $15 million high-tech "virtual border fence," which Arizona Sen. John McCain called a disgrace for its dysfunctionality, the law will accomplish little to regulate the flow of workers across the border.

This country has a 70-plus-year history of luring Mexican workers across the border -- first for agricultural labor, then for household help and now for construction, manual labor and some manufacturing industries.

One state's threat to punish business owners through license forfeiture will not stop this entrenched pattern. At best, Arizona will only "deport" the undocumented to neighboring states where the jobs still exist.

Let us hope that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco recognizes this legislated meanness as a misguided scapegoating, frequent in economic hard times, and as an unconstitutional subversion of the federal government's authority to police immigration.

My punishment won't fit my crime? I found hard to believe that crossing the border the punishment will fit their crime.

let me remind you that the rule of law generally means that the "punishment" fits the crime. I suppose many of you also advocate the Islamic laws which include stoning women for adultery and cutting off the hands of someone who steals a loaf of bread to keep from starving. I imagine you were behind those militarized police who were shooting Katrina victims who were taking food from flooded stores... food that would be spoiled and trashed anyway...

I assume you've never committed a technical breach of the law: You never exceeded the speed limit, you never jaywalked, you never filed your taxes a day or two late, you never found a $5 bill on the sidewalk and stuffed it in your pocket instead of turning it in to the police, you never drove through a yellow light, you never drove under the influence of alcohol over the State limits, you never spit on a bus.

Even using undocumented Immigrants those so called populist anchor news to ranting their shows denigrating, diminishing, scapegoating, labeled them as terrorist, some demonized them and the list goes on and on.

Know Lawmakers in at least eight states are now sponsoring 350 bills to crackdown undocumented Immigrants but their problem on undocumented Immigration is just focused on His Panics, Latinos.

State lawmakers around the country are proposing hundreds of bills this year aimed at curbing Undocumented immigration, but experts say the cost and public opposition will keep many from becoming law.

Lawmakers in at least eight states are now sponsoring legislation similar to Oklahoma, which last May passed the nation's most comprehensive anti-immigration law.

It restricts undocumented immigrants' access to driver's licenses and other IDs, limits public benefits, penalizes employers who hire them and boosts ties between local police and federal immigration authorities.

The bills are among more than 350 immigration-related proposals unveiled in state legislatures in the first two months of this year, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Sharma Hammond, staff attorney for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, believes states have been galvanized by the collapse two years running of a congressional solution.

"They feel like they have to take it into their own hands because the federal government is doing nothing," said Hammond, whose group helps states write the comprehensive bills and favors a freeze on nearly all immigration.

But it's questionable how many of the bills will become law. Many quickly lose momentum after they're introduced.

Out of more than 100 bills dealing with illegal immigration in the Virginia statehouse, only a few minor ones were likely to pass as the session was scheduled to end Saturday.

In Florida, lawmakers have proposed nearly a dozen bills targeting illegal immigration since January. But at a recent press conference at the state capitol, only two of the bills' backers showed. None of the state House leadership has offered support.

"People are still trying to keep this alive and get the federal government to pass something," said Ann Morse of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks the bills. "But now that the legislation is introduced, states are wondering is this something we need to do right now, or do we need to study it more."

Morse thinks the new comprehensive bills are partly a tool to draw public attention to the issue, especially in an election year. She noted they tend to come with official titles such as "Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act."

Last year, more than 1,500 anti-illegal immigrant laws were proposed nationwide, with nearly 250 passing, according to a count by the National Conference of State Legislatures. And some of that legislation is now creating legal and financial trouble for state governments.

The Oklahoma law still faces a legal challenge by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In Colorado, a proposal to boost the state's immigration enforcement unit may be doomed by its $3.9 million price tag.

Although the University of Arizona saved roughly $70,000 last year by identifying illegal immigrants who are ineligible for in-state tuition under a new law, it estimates the annual cost of identifying such students will be equal if not greater than the savings.

John Trasvina, president and general counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said despite the flurry of new bills, he believes anti-immigrant sentiment is starting to cool somewhat.

In part, states may be responding to a national shift, with immigration taking a back seat to the economy and the war in Iraq. All three of the major presidential candidates support a comprehensive immigration law that would eventually legalize many of the country's 12 million illegal immigrants.

"States are finding it's costing them a lot of money," Trasvina said. "It's no longer a free ride, a quick press release."

Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller summed up the perspective of a number of state legislatures.

"I don't think that the votes are there to pass a bill in terms of changing the status of immigrants in the state," Miller said. "That means not punitively and not to give them any form of tax advantages either."

The one bill likely to pass in Maryland this year: a study of the effects of immigration

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Welcome to my blog of Pro Inmigrant

I Started this blog because the frustration, confrontation and division creating by xenophobics against minorities.Some have eyes but cannot see,""Some have tongues but cannot speak the truth.They have ears but can't hear.That's where the problem is."It will be some controversial issues but true hurts.This is a Non-Profit Blog . Humanity is priceless

About Me

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation.
In my fight for Equal Justice
I am not a Republican
-I am not a Democrat
-I am not an Independent
-I am an Mexican American.
And refuse to fall for false reassurances and the tempting comforts of ignorance,
To contribute my voice in outrage, when others are forced into silence,
To speak the truth as I find it.

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